~ Adventures of a 20-year bonsai beginner

Monthly Archives: November 2016

Number two on the list of things I was doing wrong for two decades: Repotting too often.

I have heard from many who are scared to repot their bonsai – afraid they will kill the tree. Not me! Perhaps I read one too many things that suggested you should repot annually. And I did for many of my trees. I enjoyed it. Got good at it too. Didn’t kill the trees either, but boy was I slowing them down! My trees were in development. I should have let them grow. Instead, I was root pruning and repotting like I didn’t want them to grow beyond what they were already.

Any advice about how often to repot (or anything else for that matter) should taken with a grain of salt. The advice is given from the context and experience of the giver, not the receiver. If a guy like me (with a bunch of undeveloped trees) hears from a guy with many refined trees, the advice just doesn’t apply.

How does a guy spend twenty years with bonsai and still feel like a beginner? By doing it wrong! I have been doing things wrong for so long, I’m an expert! LEARN FROM ME!

I have not laid out any sort of plan for sharing my misdoings (ironically, as you will see in a moment) but I am going to move forward confident that putting a “#1” in the title will be the right path. There could, no doubt, be many of these. So, what is number 1? I never refined a tree!

The experts do address this issue, in a way. I would distill the related ideas into two statements:

Every tree is in training.

A tree can’t always be show ready.

The problem is, I took these ideas to the extreme and for two decades never even tried to get a tree to a refined state. What’s worse, I also wasn’t taking advantage of this time to properly develop thick trunks and nice branch structure. (If only!) I kept every tree either untrained (because I didn’t know what to do with it yet) or I pruned just to maintain a shape or size without any proper techniques for improving the design or ramification. Neither approach will make a great tree no matter how long you try!

Here’s my advice to avoid making the same mistake: Make a plan for each tree – a five or ten year plan if you must. What steps must you take to develop a refined, show-ready tree. Sure, you may have to adjust as you go along, but without a plan, you are just keeping a tree alive. A good start, sure, but you can do better.

I have shared before that, while I still feel like a beginner, I have been a bonsai enthusiast for a long time. It surprises me, then, when a new idea pops out at me. This may just mean I don’t pay attention well, or that I am a slow learner, but I digress.

A recent post on Crataegus.com, one of the fantastic blogs I follow, included this little gem:

“One of my core beliefs with a tree that has faults like this is to grow it into the next size larger bonsai. Literally, grow it out of its problems.”

I have considered this approach with my own trees, but to hear it from Michael Hagedorn officially puts this strategy in my tool box.

We are expecting some nasty winter winds to arrive with a cold front this evening, so I will get the trees sheltered. I am far more concerned about the wind than I am the temperatures. We will be below freezing at night, but the trees can handle that. It’s the cold, dry winds that could desiccate branches and damage buds that have formed for the spring.

We have actually had an extended period of mild weather this fall which is evident in the amount of green you can still see on the deciduous trees that will go into the cold frame for protection. When the wind gets going, I will close her up.